- SEO still matters in 2018 and will matter even more in the future
- Other channels like PR and paid media have become more expensive and less measurable
- Companies should invest in SEO as an untapped channel that can generate significant returns
- E-commerce companies should focus on good architecture to ensure scalability
- Media companies should use tools like Google Search Console to identify what's working and build more content and conversion elements
- Amazon is doing an amazing job in e-commerce SEO with a fully crawlable site and a taxonomy for every page
- Plugins can be used for media companies, but e-commerce companies may need to build their own architecture
- Paying for links is not advisable, as it goes against Google's guidelines
- Avoid any practices that are not user-focused or that you wouldn't be proud of
- Meta keywords are no longer useful, but providing keywords on YouTube can help improve understanding of the video's content
- Keywords are also important for ranking apps on the App Store.

- Keywords are important for ranking apps on the App Store, with Google ranking based on visible text and iOS using hidden keywords.
- When it comes to SEO, raw text words on a page are crucial, as Google prioritizes content over images, videos, and JavaScript.
- More keywords or words on a page are generally better, but irrelevant keywords are a waste of time.
- Reviews can be beneficial for e-commerce, but Google may not prioritize user-generated reviews.
- To generate traffic for a consumer company, starting with content related to the service and expanding to other topics can establish expertise.
- Google Search Console and keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs can help find relevant keywords and track performance.
- Images are important for user experience, and optimizing image titles and alt text can improve ranking on Google Images.
- Pinterest has unlocked SEO around images, but Google prefers users to go directly to the source of the image rather than a search within search.

- Google prefers users to go directly to the source of an image rather than through platforms like Pinterest.
- Best practices for image optimization include using alt text, title, and captions, as well as ensuring relevancy of the page.
- Organic traffic takes time to grow, so proactive measures like generating paid traffic are recommended.
- Sharing content on social media and getting mentioned in blogs can help generate links and improve organic distribution.
- Quality and relevant links are more important than quantity.
- Creating interesting content and doing good PR can lead to valuable links.
- Guest blogging on reputable sites can be an effective strategy if not done in a spammy way.
- Good content is the key ingredient for successful SEO.
- The time it takes to test and see results depends on the scale of the idea and the existing traffic of the website.
- Mobile optimization is important, but desktop optimization should not be neglected as many activities still require a larger screen.

- The focus of SEO should be on mobile users, but not at the expense of desktop users.
- Ranking in the top 3 results is more important than ranking in the top 10.
- Understanding user intent is crucial for SEO success.
- International SEO is an untapped opportunity, but may not be relevant for most companies.
- Building a separate website for each country is no longer the best practice; instead, create a subdirectory for each language.
- Machine translation can work for less important content, but hiring local translators is recommended for important content.
- Use a language selector and HTML links to switch between different language versions of the website.
- Google is the most important search engine, but specific countries may have their own dominant search engines (e.g. Baidu in China, Naver in Korea).
- Compliance with GDPR can benefit SEO, as it requires updating privacy policies and making them clear and accessible on websites.

- Privacy policies must be clearly defined and linked on websites, appearing on every page
- GDPR has led to a decrease in paid budgets, causing a shift towards organic efforts in SEO
- SEO may benefit from the reduction in paid advertising, as it may no longer cannibalize SEO efforts
- SEO practitioners should be creative, curious, and analytical, able to develop hypotheses and measure performance
- Evaluating SEO applicants should involve asking creative questions and assessing their analytical abilities
- When faced with a sudden loss of organic traffic, analyzing rankings and URLs affected can help identify Google penalties
- Recovering from a penalty may involve removing content, rebuilding high-quality content, and waiting for Google to rerun the algorithm
- Metrics for success in SEO include traffic growth, forecasting accuracy, and the ability to iterate and pivot quickly
- Tools such as Ahrefs, Google Analytics, Screaming Frog, and Xenu Link Sleuth can aid in tracking keywords, links, and analyzing website metadata.

- The speaker discusses the use of IP addresses and how they can be tied to competitors, potentially causing upset.
- They mention that understanding how websites are structured can be a valuable technical tool.
- When asked about getting into SEO, the speaker suggests starting by creating content and learning from the process.
- They recommend using LinkedIn as a way to connect and learn more.

- SEO is still important and will continue to be in the future.
- PR and paid media channels have become more expensive and less measurable.
- Investing in SEO can generate significant returns for companies.
- E-commerce companies should focus on good architecture for scalability.
- Media companies should use tools like Google Search Console to identify what's working and build more content.
- Amazon is excelling in e-commerce SEO with a fully crawlable site and a page taxonomy.
- Paying for links goes against Google's guidelines and is not advisable.
- User-focused practices and avoiding irrelevant keywords are important for SEO.
- Keywords are crucial for ranking apps on the App Store.
- Raw text words on a page are prioritized by Google for SEO.
- Reviews and content related to services can generate traffic for consumer companies.
- Google Search Console and keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner can help find relevant keywords.
- Optimizing image titles and alt text can improve ranking on Google Images.
- Quality and relevant links are more important than quantity.
- Creating good content and doing PR can lead to valuable links.
- Mobile optimization is important, but desktop optimization should not be neglected.
- Ranking in the top 3 results is more important than ranking in the top 10.
- Understanding user intent is crucial for SEO success.
- Building a separate website for each country is no longer recommended for international SEO.
- Compliance with GDPR can benefit SEO by updating privacy policies.
- SEO practitioners should be creative, curious, and analytical.
- Analyzing rankings and URLs can help identify Google penalties.
- Success in SEO is measured by traffic growth, forecasting accuracy, and the ability to iterate quickly.
- Tools like Ahrefs, Google Analytics, and Screaming Frog can aid in tracking keywords and analyzing website metadata.
- Understanding website structure and using IP addresses can be valuable technical tools.
- Starting with creating content and learning from the process is a good way to get into SEO.
- LinkedIn can be used to connect and learn more about SEO.

Eli Schwartz - https://twitter.com/5le - is the Director of SEO and Growth at SurveyMonkey - https://www.surveymonkey.com/. He came in to answer commonly asked questions about SEO.

Eli blogs about SEO and growth at http://www.elischwartz.co/

The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon - https://twitter.com/craigcannon

***

Topics

00:00 - Does SEO matter in 2018?

2:00 - Where should a company start with SEO?

3:30 - Who’s doing SEO well?

4:25 - Why is Amazon doing SEO well?

5:25 - How should you crosslink?

7:10 - Paying for links

7:35 - SEO don’t dos

8:15 - Things that are no longer useful in SEO

9:20 - Keywords

12:45 - Reviews

13:25 - Content

17:25 - Images

22:45 - Link building

28:00 - How much time to give SEO?

28:30 - Mobile

30:35 - Ranking

31:45 - International SEO

33:45 - Translation

37:15 - International search

39:30 - GDPR

41:50 - Hiring someone to do SEO

43:45 - What to do when you organic SEO disappears

46:30 - Metrics for an SEO hire

48:30 - Tools for SEO

50:00 - Getting started in SEO

All right, Eli, let's jump right into it.

So first question, does SEO still matter in 2018, or can companies ignore it and focus on other channels?

So this is a question I get asked a lot, and I've been asked this question many years past.

And sometimes the answer could have been maybe.

But now I definitively think that SEO absolutely matters and will matter even more.

And the primary reason is companies were using other channels to drive acquisition.

Startups could start their company and think of, say, PR or paid media.

They can use paid media to generate buzz and generate new clients.

But those channels have now gotten significantly more expensive.

Facebook has made it a lot harder to get an organic reach, and now you're paying for traffic on Facebook.

PR in our world where we want to measure everything, it's not as measurable.

And then what happens is companies do spend a bunch of money on those different channels.

They're maximizing their paid budgets on Google.

They're maximizing their paid budgets on Facebook.

They may even go into Bing and say, hey, maybe I have some potential market opportunity on Bing, and then they're like, what's next?

And what they do is they look in their analytics tools, they're like, all right, we've got breakdown on the channels, we've got all this direct traffic, Don't know anything about that, don't know what to do to get more.

We have referral traffic, those are outbound deals.

Some of those people linked to us, some of those things we did intentionally.

Great, we know what we're doing there, organic.

So this is an untapped channel, We don't know what we did.

And then they think, maybe if we invest in it, now we'll get so much more and we'll intentionally be working on this channel.

So I think that's where we are in 2018, where this is the untapped channel.

This is the channel which has been driving business for free, and now if companies put effort in it, it'll actually generate significant returns.

Edith Warren And where should they get started?

Say they're at just the bare minimum, they have a little bit of content, maybe a blog or something, but where should they really focus their energy

So if it's an e-commerce company, they want to think about architecture.

And any e-commerce company thinking about SEO, they should have thought about SEO before they chose their e-commerce platform.

They want to make sure the site is structured properly to scale.

What do you do if you get a new distributor and now you're ready to add 10,000 products and your website can't handle 10,000 products and now you're going to load it up and each URL's going to be 1234567.

You're not going to have any way of putting in your right product descriptions and optimizing against likely competitors that are selling the same products.

They should focus on good architecture, or should have focused on good architecture long before.

That's where they can look at what has worked for them in the past.

And My favorite search tool is Google Search Console because it's from Google.

It may or may not be as accurate as can be, but it's probably more accurate than other tools which are sort of projecting what the actual truth

Using that tool, they can see what's working.

Here's what we're getting traffic on, then marry that data with analytics.

Here's what's actually performing and converting for us.

Build more content there, build more conversion elements on that, and expand.

I think media companies have actually gotten around to doing this really well.

The way they cross-link and just have every sort of page possible, so you take an item in the news today, they've got all these cross-links to things they've written in the past, which suddenly can become relevant to the searcher.

It's not newsworthy anymore, but if someone searches it like, hey, maybe they want to hear about a cow that got struck by lightning 4 years ago, and there's a display ad.

So I think media has gotten around to really maximizing the value of their content.

When it comes to e-commerce, it's really only Amazon that's doing it amazing.

Amazon has built a structure where every single product, and they have billions of SKUs, somehow is discovered by the search engines.

And if you manage to put in the right keywords that match that right product, you will find it.

And what are the, okay, so let's like be a little bit more specific.

So what are the exact mechanisms they're using to be discoverable?

So for the most important thing when it comes to SEO and making sure that your site is somewhat optimized for SEO, is that the site is fully crawlable.

So Amazon has built this structure where no matter what the product is, it may be something that there's only 2 customers in the world.

If Google drops their bot anywhere within the site, it will crawl through the whole site.

It may take a long time, but it will find that page.

That's where anybody that wants to do this right has to think about, like, what is this thing that I'm putting on, whether it's an article or a product, what is it related to to make sure that there's a path for that page to be found by a bot?

And that's where Amazon's doing an amazing job of making sure There is a taxonomy for every single page.

Every page is discovered, and every page can be ranked with the right queries.

So in the context of a company that's not an e-commerce company, would you recommend using plugins to display relevant content to link to other pages or building your own?

How would you actually set up that architecture?

Matzkoff So for media, you can use a plugin because all you're trying to do is create relevance

When it comes to e-commerce, there has to be a good plugin or something built internally because you're not going to want to have, say, a red sweater cross-linked over to a dog leash.

So that's where a plugin that correlates between, hey, red, and here's a red dog leash, that's not going to work, so you might want to build something internally.

Again, media, what a lot of media companies do is they're just looking for relationships.

1 thing I found to be very effective for cross-linking is just randomization.

So if you randomize your URLs, you make sure that provided your randomization algorithm is correct, every single URL ends up being cross-linked.

If they don't end up clicking, you still have achieved that level of cross-linking that Google can discover.

So just literally random pieces of content or products added in there?

Products, not so much, because there is a user experience to that.

Because again, someone's reading some article.

They're reading about something that President Trump said today, and there's an article about somebody getting struck by lightning.

They may click it, and it could be relevant.

And who's to say that that's not another article that might be interesting?

Leeson Yeah, well I think that will always be interesting.

What about paying for links on other sites?

That's an absolute no-no according to Google.

And they're doing it through a business development relationship.

If it's done purely just to get the SEO link, then it's not advisable because someone could report that to Google and you don't want to go down that path of buying links.

It seems like there are so many of these don't dos, these no-nos.

What are the other things people should absolutely watch out for?

The big 1 is anything that you're not comfortable talking about maybe to your mother.

So like, you know, hiding text at the bottom of the page so you're building a bunch of content.

If it's not something you're going to be proud of, that's probably something you shouldn't do.

The way Google really puts it, if you're doing it explicitly to rank for SEO, then that's probably something you shouldn't do.

They have a bunch of rules around that, but really there's nothing you should be doing that's just for crawlers.

Maybe if there's some relevance for hidden text on a page for users, you might have an explanation.

And then are there things that were maybe quite useful in the past that are no longer relevant?

Are there things that are kind of just no longer useful?

So meta keywords is a great example of something that's no longer useful.

And the reason meta keywords existed is because Google and other search engines actually were relevant at the time, didn't have a really good way of understanding text.

So now we're in the stage of development around search, where Google announced today that Google Home understands Spanish.

So the understanding of spoken words, and their understanding of spoken words is not even in English, so they don't need you to put meta keywords on a page to say what you're trying to rank for.

But back then when search was early, They kind of did.

Google was more advanced than other search engines as they were able to determine what the page was about.

However, meta keywords was still a signal of maybe what's on the page.

Of course, marketers spam that by putting what they thought would be the most relevant words, which are usually porn, because

And what about actually, so we obviously, this is on YouTube.

When YouTube asks for keywords, do you recommend people use those?

I mean, like we use them, but to a limited extent.

So YouTube's different because Google's not great at really understanding what the video is about.

So by giving more information and it could be a transcription it's those keywords that you put in you're giving a better indication of what the video is about.

With YouTube though, it's really hard to guarantee a ranking.

So the more information you can give, the more likely you have a chance at playing that game.

1 other place where keywords are really important and they're hidden is when you're trying to rank an app on the App Store.

So on Google, the way they rank an app is based on all the visible text.

So it's the name of the app, which is sort of like the title, the short description, which is forget how many characters, but a shorter description of the app, which you see right above the fold, And then the long description, which is thousands of characters where you just fill in whatever you want.

So all of that goes into what Google's going to rank the app on Google Play.

On iOS, there are keywords, and I think you have 100 characters hidden.

So if you're trying to rank an app on, let's say, selling something random, but you think that people are going to search porn keywords, that's where you would hide it.

No 1 would even know that's what you're trying to rank

And so when it comes to actually like, building out your SEO, like, What is the kind of content that's important?

Because we talk about content marketing, we've talked about it in podcasts before, we've talked about it in the context of YC and other companies, and oftentimes people just kind of copy what other companies are doing, And that's not always the most effective strategy.

So how do you frame, what's the most important content to be actually working on for your company, whatever that might be?

So content's something that people have talked about forever and they had this thing, content is king, and they used it for, like you said, content marketing.

But really, it's something that we always need to underscore when it comes to SEO, is because people stop using content.

If you fill up a page with images or video or JavaScript, you no longer have content.

So Google, as much as they say they're really good at understanding and ranking JavaScript, they're not.

Because in real time, when they're looking for your content, you are handicapping yourself by not having just raw text words on the page.

it comes to SEO content, raw text words on a page.

And it's not really a truism that more is better, but it is sort of.

Because if you have a product description and you only have 100 words and then somebody else has the same product but they have 1,000 words in different ways of describing the product, more than likely, they will get more search traffic because as people search different keywords related to it, they become relevant because they've used the words, and you are not relevant because you have not used the words.

So in that sense, more keywords are better.

More words are not better if all you're doing is filling up that words with emptiness.

Like if you're describing a mug, and you describe it many different ways, like this is a mug, that is a cup that you can drink, or you can pour things in, and there's all these irrelevant keywords, that's sort of a waste of time.

And it won't convert for you, because users are going to read that.

where people add in reviews and that sort of thing for e-commerce.

So reviews can be tough too, because Google can understand that it's user generated reviews and it may not be as high quality.

But that's something where like I don't know.

Those are 1 of those things where you have to take that question and test it from SEO standpoint.

Like if I had reviews on this, am I going to rank more on different keywords and get more traffic?

Or is Google going to look at that and say it's user generated and not send more traffic for the content that's in the review?

So then what about your consumer company, it's not an e-commerce company, and you want to get into generating content that will generate traffic for you.

And then let's go through the actual workflow.

So you want to come up with anything related to that service.

And the first kind of content you're going to need is the closest to that service.

You just go old-fashioned, you're a plumber.

So you offer different services that people need, like unclogging drains.

So you want to have a piece of content that talks about unclogging drains.

Now, when people search, and this is something where you don't really need to rank on unclogged drains anymore, because Google's very local.

So if you're in San Francisco and you're a plumber and someone searches unclogged drains, you now have a much higher chance of ranking on unclogged drains than Roto-Rooter, which is national.

You need to have some sort of local signal.

But Google's going to show, for unclogged drains, that's a need.

Doesn't help to even show someone not in your area.

So you want to have that piece of content.

Now, as you build out that content, you can move further up the buying funnel, which is, all right, now I have an immediate problem, unclogged drains.

But how do I make sure I never have a clogged drain?

Now you can have best practices on how to maintain your plumbing.

So as you build out this fuller site, it can even go into how do you hire someone to renovate your house and make sure you have quality plumbing and what's the kind of piping you should choose.

And let's say you're going to buy it yourself.

So there's many, many different avenues of content, all related to original service, which can help you establish yourself as an expert in plumbing and pipes and clogged drains.

But how are you actually, so if the angle is like, it's just taste, like it's just opinion, and you figure out if you really understand your customer, you can know all of these things.

But is there a more programmatic way to be like, okay, Customers that end up on our site are looking for XYZ thing.

How do you find out those terms, those queries?

So the best way is you're using Google Search Console.

You can see the kinds of things people are looking for.

If you don't have that content, so say you had a great piece of content on unclogged drains, but everyone's searching about unclogged bathroom sink.

That's the specific thing they're looking for.

And you don't have a piece of content on unclogged bathroom sink.

Now, before you start, what you can do is you can go to the Google Keyword Tool.

I think that it's called Google Keyword Planner now.

So you go to the Google Keyword Planner and you're searching for keywords related to what you need.

So you're looking for drains, you're looking for clogs, you're looking for unclog.

And that should give you a bunch of ideas, along with search volume about what people are looking for.

You can also use my favorite paid SEO tool, which is called Ahrefs.

So you're getting ideas, and from there you want to sort of battle test those ideas by launching them, seeing what kind of traffic comes in and seeing how it performs.

Maybe you have this great page on unclogging drains and all people do is learn and never fill out a lead or never call your phone

And are you tracking that through Google Analytics or using other tools?

Analytics would be my favorite tool for tracking how their performance is going on, as far as traffic coming in.

Even though you can't see the keywords people are searching on Analytics, you can see the URLs.

You look at the URL that's generating traffic, you see the conversions, Hopefully you've tagged your goals in analytics.

And you see the conversions that come through.

And you know what's your best performing content.

Now you can take that same URL, put it into the Google Search Console, and then see the kinds of keywords you're even getting impressions on.

If there are keywords you're getting impressions on, but people aren't clicking, that's an area of optimization.

If your keywords that you're getting impressions on, people are clicking but not converting, another area of optimization.

You're starting with getting ideas, Maybe starting with keywords, building it, and then learning from what you're getting.

So you said that it's important to have raw text on the page.

That's the easiest to parse for Google and other things that are crawling your site.

So the most important thing to consider within all SEO is that you're doing this for users.

You're doing this because users are going to use Google and then find your website on Google and then click through into your website, and then hopefully experience your website and do whatever you want them to do.

If you're generating revenue from ad impressions, you want them to click another page.

If you're generating leads, you want them to fill out the lead form.

If you are selling a product, you want them to buy it, or whatever that is.

So images help with that user experience.

So if all you're doing is putting text on the page, none of us like to look at raw walls of text.

So the images, in that sense, should fit in with their user experience.

And that is, Google Images is 1 of the largest, if you want to think about it as a separate search engine, it's 1 of the largest search engines

I think YouTube is number 2, but Google Images is definitely up there.

So if you put images on the page, 1 thing you can do is make sure the images are titled so the actual JPEG file or PNG file are tagged with the keyword.

So say you're selling Coffee mugs, you want to call it like coffeemug.jpeg, and not just some random file name that came from the camera.

also want to put alt tags or alt text around the actual image, which is still needed in today's day.

But Google eventually will figure out what images are, and they're getting closer to figuring out what images are.

Alt text is the version of meta keywords, like meta keywords used to be.

So Google didn't know or doesn't know what images are, so you're saying what the image is, and that helps your rank.

The actual ranking formula for Google images is really really hard to discern.

But if you follow best practices like you have this chance of you know people searching and then there's this additional avenue of people finding content.

Well it seems like Pinterest has been the 1 who unlocked that right.

See all Y Combinator transcripts on Youtube

SEO Advice from SurveyMonkey Director of SEO and Growth, Eli Schwartz